


My Cotton Lover

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, M/M, Vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 05:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16633478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: My cotton lover won’t you sing your lullaby. Croon me a song in your dulcet tones. Lie to me around your doldrum tones. Tell me the stories of two lovely kids, two pirate boys swinging in trees. Tell me a nightmare of kids who grow up, who sway under arches and bath in white dresses. Tell me of lovers who grow grey together, who raise up their dogs and run hills with their kids.





	My Cotton Lover

It’s Christmas time my dear cotton lover, and you are not here. _You are never here._ There is snow, pretty glittering flakey snow- in village scenes, you know. You are not here, my dear cotton boy. You have not been in many a year.

[I think the last time you were here, the snow fell from the trees, not on my screen. I think you told me I was selfish. You hated me. _Delete my picture, delete my number, delete our memories._ ]

I miss you. I don’t. You walked out the door. You walked out and you took my sweater and you took my mug and you left your fucking dog. [Did I steal this mangy beast? His fur, like midnight caught beneath the moon, reminds me of you that last night. He tried to run so many times that first year but you never did leave a forwarding address.] You left your dog and he shits everywhere because that’s what he thinks of me, of you. [He is old and his fur might soon turn grey and I forget to leave the door open.

Oh! They’re playing our song, love. The beast is howling and the neighbors are ready to start a row but they’re playing our song! Let me just- I’ve lost my coat, fucking thing. You know the coat, out of style and date. Patchy blue stars on the pocket. Stains from a boutonnière whose sap had not yet dried.

Say, did I ever tell you how mad your mother was, when she caught me climbing through your window? God, the blood from my palms on her fresh coat of white paint. Tell me love, who keeps ornaments on their windowsill in June? Green glass everywhere and me dripping blood on the walls and the carpet and your mother in her robe wondering why the damn hell I hadn’t come through the door. [Does she know where you were that night? Does she know what we did on her brand new sheets? Me, a silly boy running from home and you, smelling of smoke and strangers and what happens in back alleys?]

I wasn’t ever your first anything, despite what people thought. You, with your choir shorts and your little cross. Everyone thought you were so innocent. That you were the angel and I was the devil. [I begged you to corrupt me beside the lake and you laughed, gently.] “Smart as a whip and driven. Going places, that boy!” If only I would’ve stayed away. [You didn’t that day. But you crawled into the empty space beneath our house that winter. You splayed me in the dirt and I learned how sharp your tongue was. Learned what those winter-root fingers were made for, all narrow and brittle and cold.]

Was it really me, my precious little-? Did I really take the good in you and crush it in my palms? [Fuck, were these pants really always so tight? I know you liked my butt in them. You used to make it red- as red as cranberry sauce but “so much sweeter, Arthur.”] I’m sorry, if I did. I never meant for my dark edges to stain your cotton skin. I’d like to think though, that the ink inside your veins bled into me, [my mouth, my taint, my elbows, my knees] and rewrote all the lies life held in store.

You know, I saw you once, on the warm eastern shore. It wasn’t hard; I knew you’d be there. [Cotton stuffed lovers can be seen everywhere.] I saw you, inside a clothing store. It doesn’t matter which. You walked in and you held a silk tie, and I knew why. I’m wearing it now, love. Brilliant and purple and totally clashing against the blue of a suit three decades too old. You held it, and I wrapped it around your throat, and your lips were as red as cranberry sauce. [But so much more tart.] I held it against that marble column and you didn’t say a word. You didn’t blink. You dropped the tie and you gripped a hand and you walked away and those awful red lips parted. Laughter spilled out of them and I was drenched. The sky might’ve turned grey or maybe salt dried out my cheeks. But you laughed and I drowned and I wanted to feel you inside me once more, but I guess you were already inside of her, of him.

[Heaven, but I’ve lost my train of thought again. I suppose I set it next to my cufflinks. Silver like bells, silver like your eyes. But your eyes weren’t magic were they? Just the blue of a child’s scribble. My train is all derailed and I sold those cufflinks long again. To pay for a band I should swallow already.]

It’s Christmas dear and you owe me a dance. [I’ve learned you know, since the stage and the pole and the tips that almost covered rent.] That’s what you said, you promised. One dance, in my father’s blue suede shoes. Where you always a kinky little shit? [God no. You wanted to spit in his face, but you’d settle for public disgrace in his favorite shoes.]

I saw you on the eastern shore, and wouldn’t you know, I saw you again the very next day. Back here in our home, down that stupid country lane. You always drove so very fast. Damn fast, you said even metal couldn’t keep the wind from your wings. But you, I saw you, and the sound of the crash echoed up and down the lane and the birds took flight in a dark cloud and the sun didn’t shine for days and days and days and days. [As many days as you lay, cotton against cotton sheets.] Remind me, how did you make it back from the eastern shore so very fast? I couldn’t see you on my plane. But god could your flight take crash? [That’s not right, that phrase. How’s it go again? The impact seems to be muddling my brain.]

Have I mentioned that I had lunch with your mother, yesterday? She misses you. You really ought to call her, you awful son you. [Everyone touted you as the perfect son. Because they never smelled your mother’s strawberry wine on your breath. They never tasted their own cum on your tongue, sitting ‘round the dinner bell. Did your mother ever find out what happened to her pink lace panties? I keep them in my back pocket still.] You hated my father, but he was a blessed man. His knuckles were always purple but never on my cheeks. He left me everything, you know. He built this company, and only parts of it weren’t legal, but he built it and he bled for it and he laid it at my feet.

You asked me to wait for you. You screamed it really. When I left you to study the ancient tongue you sobbed against my chest and swore you’d never let me go. But I told you, boy, didn’t I? I told you it was you who’d need to wait for me. I begged you not to go to that place where I could not follow. Where they paint you silver and ruby and your eyes glow with fog and your breath’s sweet mist. Your skin was cold, is cold, always cold. Call your mother, she’s also cold. And pick up your damn dog, he’s shivering without your heat!

Our song is playing, love. It’s coming to an end. You promised me a dance. Promised it so long ago when you swallowed a golden band. It bubbled against your teeth and it burned down your throat and you swallowed it and you cried and parts of us died. You left. You left before our song and you didn’t come back, even though you promised. _Delete my picture_ [keep it by your bed], _delete my number_ [lock it deep in side your head], _delete our memories_ [I can’t; I won’t until we’re dead.] I saw you on the eastern shore and I heard you down a country lane and it’s Christmas time. The tree’s all decked. It’s snowing, in village scenes, on pixel screens, and I’m waiting for your hand.

Waiting for a dance.

I stole my father’s blue suede shoes. He won’t need them from his stone. I’m wearing the pants that cup my butt. I’ve got that awful coat tight across my shoulder, and it still smells like sap and you, and holy fuck this tie is ugly, but I’ve got it wrapped real tight. [You weren’t supposed to know how to do a Windsor knot, but no one ever realized I didn’t know how.]  And look! It’s snowing mate! D’you know that the last time it snowed, was when you walked away? God, the snow was so majestic, falling on your shoulders. You wore it like a cape, like a king walking away. [Do kings often walk away? I’ve dotted my t’s and crossed my i’s but it seems all wrong again.]

It’s cold. It’s so cold. You’re so cold and cruel and you left me with a dog that’s not long for this world. I tried so hard to treat him well. He’s not been eating lately. [I’ve not been eating lately.] He whines for you, and I play our song and he howls and the neighbors row. Everyone says it’s been too long, you aren’t coming home. But you agreed, didn’t you? When they cut the band out of your belly? You promised you’d come home, out the door you left. Your mother misses you and you owe me a dance and it’s god-awful cold out here. [When did I end up here?]

Can I tell you a secret, soft cotton boy? I found that thing you kept so hidden, that sleepy little thing. Did you even know you left it behind? It’s bitter under my tongue. It’s bitter, like the weather, like Christmas has been for so many years. The beast has gone to sleep, and I don’t think he’s going to wake up this time. And your mother’s stopped asking for you to call. [Just as well, your number’s gone defunct.] The suit doesn’t fit and the song’s come to an end, and lover wouldn’t you know? It’s not so cold here in this lake, not so cold beneath the blue.

[Wait for me. Will you just wait for me? I’m hurrying as fast I can! It burns a little love, and everything’s gone dark. Tell me, did your chest ache this way and did your lungs grow so heavy? Your crash is so much louder here! Metal wrapping ‘round the bend, and you’re walking away but where are you going? No- come back! You said you’d wait! Like I did beside cotton sheets, holding your winter storm hands! You bastard. You lying fucking bastard! Where did you go? Why are you gone? Didn’t we make promises? _Delete my love, delete my name, delete the taste of your skin on mine._ Promises and promises and lies and songs and you’re gone and the dog’s asleep and your mother won’t call.]

 

 

My cotton lover won’t you sing your lullaby. Croon me a song in your dulcet tones. Lie to me around your doldrum tones. Tell me the stories of two lovely kids, two pirate boys swinging in trees. Tell me a nightmare of kids who grow up, who sway under arches and bath in white dresses. Tell me of lovers who grow grey together, who raise up their dogs and run hills with their kids.

My cotton lover your skin is so pale, it’s bout as soft as a dainty hangnail. Christmas is passing and trees have gone brown. The bobcats are sing and the blue suedes gone stale but our song’s got one note left and I’ll sing it out true. My cotton lover, I’ll come home to you. Cotton lover, coming to you.


End file.
